Three weeks ago I arrived in London weary and excited, and that’s where I pick up this blog from.
I envy travel writers that must make such perfect diary entries be it scrawled on a blank piece of newspaper, on a napkin at a restaurant, or neatly in their little laptop sitting on the cafe table. I just can’t keep up to be honest, between photographing, exploring, eating and just taking it in the blog has been left to sit idle. Which as it turns out is a bit slack as …

London; so far so good…

Air Asia flight D72008 to Stansted was early, and I’d slept like a baby with valium dabbed on the dummy. Though I initially found it all a bit chaotic to get a train to the terminal and then queue for about 20 minutes to get to Mr Immigration I was told by fellow travellers that it was a god-send compared to Heathrow, so I’ll take it as a positive.

D5675, Shanghai South Railway Station to Hangzhou, 17.58 scheduled arrival time. This wasn’t a train that I was anticipating sitting on. A couple of weeks ago I booked a flight from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia X. I never took too much notice of the airport as I figured I’d sort it out when I arrived in Shanghai.

Taklamakan Desert, Xinjiang, China – Images by Jamie McDonald
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well, we were on the road to Rome, in Kashgar, a crucial silk road stop after and before the Taklamakan Desert.
The name of the desert in local folklore means Go in and you won’t come out, and the fierce heat and sandstorms could easily allow one to dissapear very quickly. We wanted to go for a ride into the desert by camel, so we contacted Ali at Uighur Tour and Travel Centre (mailto: silkroadguide@hotmail.com) …

Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, China – Images by Jamie McDonald
Chengdu Airport, Sichuan Province. Departing rather than arriving, which means I’ve had about a week off from the blog, which in turn means I’ve got rather a bit to catch up on!
We left Shangri-La under the guidance of one of Daisy’s (from Sean’s Cafe) friends who had a hostel in Haba village, under the snow capped Haba Snow Mountain. Our journey was quoted to be three hours, but after stopping for every person with a thumb out on the way (and …

To arrive in Shangri-La we very willingly left Lijiang at 1pm on a bus from the central bus station in the city. Despite the cost being 37 Yuan our smiling western faces could do nothing to obtain the 3 Yuan change from the 40 that we handed over. Alas, 4.5 hours in a bus for AUD$7.30 was nothing to complain about considering the 20 minute tram from Glenelg to Adelaide is $4.50.
Nervously handing our packs to the driver to strap them onto the roof I then quickly rushed  (Chinese Style) …